Favorite Reads of 2023
somehow narrowed down to 10
This newsletter is dedicated to my top ten reads of 2023. These are books that I loved for one primary reason: they cut through the fog of depression, of brain fog, of grief. Whether they pierced the veil (a nod to the pop punk era of my youth) because of immense joy or intense pain, I loved them for reminding me of the wealth of emotions lying in wait, eager to be felt.
For the readers desperate to feel, this is for you.
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer: This book is a cancer book, and as such, it is heart wrenching. It is also a book about motherhood, death, faith, girlhood, and coming of age. Structurally, it did something that I have never seen before. It fully embodied illness. The novel personified cancer in more than language. Reading it felt like experiencing the grief of a chronically faltering body. Meandering sentences, shifting nostalgic timelines, and words scattered across the page like pills spilled from a bottle made the book feel so distinctly crip to me. It is intimate, and it bowled me over when I read it. It still pummels me in the heart to think about it now.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward: I read three Jesmyn Ward novels in 2023: Salvage the Bones, Sing Unburied Sing, and Let Us Descend. Each was a beacon of craft, but Salvage the Bones, the first I read, sits at the top. It is a piercing and acute depiction of girlhood, poverty, coming of age, and the rural South. Ward is one of the best writers I’ve read, but more importantly, her characters’ stories won’t leave my head, constantly prodding my memory.
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews: Gosh darn do I love a Wisconsin book. Make it queer and filled with both existential dread and hope, and it’ll reside on my favorites shelf forever. All This Could Be Different takes place in Milwaukee and gives a raw and honest depiction of the burden of capitalism and childhood trauma. True to its title, it left me pondering the future. All this - draining and soulless jobs, confining relationships, isolation from community - could indeed be different.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson: I keep recommending this book to Normal People lovers (it was recommended to me by the MVP of Normal People lovers) and I won’t stop. The prose in this book is some of the best that I read all year, and my fingers itched to pick up my highlighter from the very first page. Open Water follows two Black artists as they walk the line between romance and friendship, teetering towards love regardless. It’s a novel that aches in delightfully visceral ways. Short but impactful.
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor: Fuck academia, am I right? I don’t naturally gravitate towards campus novels. They often make me sad in the worst ways. I ache to see my experience reflected. I long for denouncements of upper academia’s flaws rather than celebrations of the overpriced, dripping with privilege vibes. I read this before making the decision to go back to college, and it firmly established Brandon Taylor as one of my favorite writers. His characters are flawed, messy, and broken in ways that make them feel like flesh and blood. Plus, as established, I love a Midwestern queer.
Bonus: I met Brandon on his book tour in Madison, and while waiting in line to say hello and get my books signed, I got the email informing me of my admission to the University of Wisconsin. Life rarely feels serendipitous, but that moment was something special.
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: The Locked Tomb series, starting with Gideon the Ninth, is something that, in theory, shouldn’t work for my brain. As my brain fog worsens and my cognitive functioning feels more forced, I become increasingly frustrated and intimidated by dense science fiction and fantasy. I am terrified that I am slowing down. I worry that the stories I love, my hobbies, and my humor are fading as my brain becomes more overwhelmed with illness. It feels, sometimes, like thoughts are sand slipping through my fingers, so encountering books written like puzzles that only the author knows the final result of triggers all of my defenses.
Yet, these books thrill me. Harrow the Ninth, which is written in second person and confused the hell out of me for most of the book, is such an adept depiction of grief without straying from the “lesbian necromancer in space” action packed plot. This series is a marvel, and I am already mourning the end.
Warning: Harrow the Ninth contains a deeply ableist slur, and it is so disheartening. I would love to see it edited out in future editions. It’s disappointing to exist in a world where even the things that I love the most are imbued with ableism, and I dream of a day where it is few and far between.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: For the first half of the book, I didn’t anticipate it reaching any of my “best of” lists. With leisurely pacing and prose bordering on scientific, it was intriguing and unusual, but it wasn’t until the pieces of the puzzle started to click that I saw the depth of the picture. Piranesi stands as a subtle but acute metaphor for disability and the loss of one’s cognitive functioning. The descriptions of the setting are beautiful, and the last third was unputdownable.
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon: This story is primal yet tender. Following a pregnant Black teenager who escapes a cult and learns to survive in the wilderness, it’s about motherhood, transness, and disability. This novel gives space for the primal grit of surviving a hateful world accompanied by the tender give of community and love. There’s a little body horror, a little gay romance, and a sci-fi twist. What could be better?
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green: Enough folks have reviewed this that I don’t know what more there is to say. It was a simple reminder of the good, and it helped me want to live. I don’t know that this book does anything revolutionary, but it moved me and reminded me of the joys of living. Sometimes we need that. I need it more often than not.
Also, the audiobook is stellar.
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee: These essays made me want to write, which is a testament to the book in and of itself. I found Chee’s writing to be compelling, personable, and inviting. As I read, I was eager to pick up his fiction, to see the things he wrote about in action. Contrary to the title, this book contains so much more than notes on writing fiction - though it did have enough of that to spark my creativity - and I highly recommend it to folks who like personal essays on identity, queerness, and art.
I had such a good reading year, and it’s interesting how reflecting back on these books makes me also reflect back on the real life that surrounded them. I sobbed to John Green’s essays while driving home to Wisconsin, nearly pulling over on the side of a snowy country road to take a full breath. Sorrowland’s pages were devoured under the heat of a summer sun, and my grandmother asked me to tell her about Salvage the Bones when I finished it, crying, on her couch. She was never a reader, but she listened intently when I described the story.
Reading is a glimpse into other worlds, other lives, but to be a reader is also, in a way, to take snapshots of your own life and insert them into the pages. My bookshelves are like a secret scrapbook, if I take the time to look through.
I hope your 2024 reading is off to a good start, but if not, you have time. The stories are waiting. The books will be there whenever you’re ready to read them.
I am so glad you found Jesmyn Ward. She’s my favorite living writer. SALVAGE THE BONES is my favorite too. 🖤
Loved so many of these too